Teaching functional French is discussed with instructors of groups of foreign workers in mind. It takes as its starting point two "modules" for teaching French ("the highway code at driving school" and "starting and keeping small talk going") and uses them to exemplify some of the difficulties involved in the development and classroom use of pedagogical materials based on the pragmalinguistic concept of communicative competence. These difficulties include: the role of the structural component in a functional course; problems posed by notional analysis in a cross-cultural situation; difficulties related to pedagogical choices (such as team teaching and simulation procedures), to the type of learners (their ideas about languaqe, language learning and situational needs) and the use of authentic documents. Finally, there is a discussion of the results achieved by the learners in a real life situation. (Author)